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It was a parabolic week for space nerds. The president teased the creation of a fourth military branch dubbed the "Space Force," world-renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76, and NASA's acting chief retired without someone ready to succeed him. But hey, at least to listen to Elon Musk's Wonka-esque visions for the future of spaceflight during his sold out SXSW keynote. Numbers because the only thing harder than math is space.

An email sent in the dead of night on Saturday revealed that Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, would appear at SXSW for a surprise Q&A session. By 8:30 the following morning, the Moody Theater was sold out; by noon, when Musk was scheduled to take the stage, the arena was packed.

SXSW plays host to big-name speakers all the time. Mother! and Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky was on stage yesterday, Apple's Eddy Cue is on a panel tomorrow and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins had a keynote this morning. But something felt different at the Moody Theater in downtown Austin. The crowd was unusually excited, expectant. A thousand or so SXSW attendees, a large number of them press, had congregated, after getting only 12 hours' notice, to hear Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk speak.

The panel was scheduled for noon, but at 12:15 PM people were still shuffling in. Either Musk was running late or officials were stalling to let the audience take their seats. A small group in the venue's upper tier began clapping, as though calling for an encore after a concert, and the rhythmic applause swiftly pulsed around the theater, to no avail.

Elon Musk took the stage about 30 minutes late at the Moody Theater in downtown Austin, Texas, and when he finally appeared, the soldout crowd cheered and jumped to their feet, smartphones glowing. His conversation at SXSW was a surprise, announced late the night before, and the talk itself was just as casual. Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan took prewritten questions from the audience and asked Musk for his thoughts on a vast array of topics, covering everything from colonizing Mars to the benefits of a carbon tax and the future of artificial intelligence.

You might not have to wait long to see SpaceX's BFR rocket system in action ... maybe. In a talk at SXSW, Elon Musk said he expected the spacecraft's first "short up-and-down flights" by the first half of 2019. He was quick to hedge his claim, noting that his timelines tend to be "optimistic" (remember how Falcon Heavy was supposed to launch in 2013?), but this at least gives you a timeframe. Test flights couldn't place too much later when the goal is to send cargo missions to Mars by 2022.

Elon Musk promised a short film about the inaugural Falcon Heavy launch from the team behind Westworld, and he delivered. The entrepreneur has posted the video, Falcon Heavy and Starman, in twoparts on Instagram (update: now on YouTube). It's not exactly a magnum opus, but it does a good job of encapsulating SpaceX's milestone in a short amount of time, including Starman's departure. Surprisingly, the video includes the loss of the center booster -- SpaceX isn't pretending the launch was all sunshine and roses. And naturally, there's no shortage of David Bowie for the soundtrack.

Plenty has happened in the five years since Elon Musk first published his white paper on a system he called hyperloop. Since releasing that manifesto to the world, hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars have been put to work, all in the service of bringing Musk's retro-futurist dream of a vacuum tube for people to life. And despite being less than a fever dream half a decade ago, the pace of innovation is notably increasing, with 2018 already including several big announcements regarding its future.

When we talk about the current era of private spaceflight, the phrase "space race" is thrown around quite often. It's meant as a good thing; a space race against the Russians is what put American astronauts on the moon. The idea of rocket billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos working day and night to outdo one another in some spectacle of bravado may sound appealing; it would certainly have entertainment value. But a space race isn't necessarily, in and of itself, a good thing. After all, it's why we've been stuck in low Earth orbit for going on five decades.

SpaceX successfully launched another Falcon 9 rocket today carrying Spain's radar imaging Paz satellite as well as two of its own satellites, Microsat-2a and -2b. The two experimental satellites will be used to test SpaceX's plan to deliver internet to people around the globe through thousands of low-orbit satellites.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 is blasting into the skies today carrying Hisdesat's PAZ satellite, which will spend five and a half years carrying out radar and imaging work for the Spanish government and businesses. The launch, which uses a first stage booster previously used last August during the FORMOSAT-5 mission, will also have on board SpaceX's first demonstration satellites for its proposed satellite broadband service, which will be tested out before a full constellation launch over the next five years. Weather permitting, you'll be able to watch the launch live on PAZ's YouTube channel at 9AM EST (6AM PST), although a back-up window has been scheduled for Thursday, February 22nd, should things go awry -- since today's launch was initially slated for February 17th, that's not entirely unfeasible.

Update 2/21/18 9:27AM ET: SpaceX has announced that the launch will be delayed until February 22nd due to strong winds.

Standing down today due to strong upper level winds. Now targeting launch of PAZ for February 22 at 6:17 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Sorry, folks, you'll have to wait a while longer before SpaceX's satellite internet launch takes place. With hours to go, SpaceX has delayed the liftoff from its February 17th target to 9:17AM Eastern on February 21st. According to the company, the crew at the Vandenberg launchpad needed extra time to run "final checkouts" of the upgraded fairing used to protect the Falcon 9 rocket's payload. The company has been inching toward completely reusable rockets, and it wants to be sure it's making progress on that front.

Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster may have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, but you can still follow its path through the Solar System. Satellite guru Ben Pearson's unofficial Whereisroadster.com website is tracking the EV based on NASA data and his own flight modeling (which, it turns out, is more accurate than Musk's). The site not only gives you an idea of the relative position and speed, but offers fun tidbits such as the number of times the car has voided its 36,000 mile warranty and its equivalent fuel economy if it had traveled under its own power.

Starman is drifting farther and farther away from us; a lot of the telescopes that have been tracking the Tesla and its passenger's journey will soon no longer be able to see them. The Virtual Telescope Project, which has been keeping an eye on the spacefarer and its trusty Tesla from the time they left the planet aboard the first Falcon Heavy launch, is bidding the duo goodbye by live streaming their trajectory one last time. VTP gives people a way to access several robotic telescopes in real time over the internet -- the images of Starman and its Tesla zooming across the sky, in particular, were and will be provided by the Tenagra Observatories in Arizona.

For years, Elon Musk has been talking about his plans to launch thousands of low-orbiting satellites that will be able to provide high speed internet to people around the globe. While the details of those satellites have been kept largely under wraps, we've known that the first round of prototypes were nearing a launch date, and according to a letter posted on the FCC's website yesterday (and spotted by CNET), the first two test satellites will be placed into orbit this weekend.

The buzz over SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launch might have seemed to erupt out of nowhere, but for space enthusiasts, it was a long time coming. I've followed the development of the Falcon Heavy since it was announced in 2011, and I was on the ground at Cape Canaveral to see the launch in person, about three miles away at NASA's press site.

Yesterday, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket to much fanfare. After numerous delays due to upper-level winds, the rocket lifted off at 3:45 PM ET on Tuesday. The rocket worked perfectly, delivering the test payload into orbit (a red Tesla roadster) and coasting for six hours before performing another engine burn to take it deeper into the solar system. SpaceX was even able to land two of the three boosters in beautiful synchronization. The core booster was lost because of low propellant; it slammed into the ocean at around 300 miles per hour, 300 feet from the drone ship.

After the successful launch of SpaceX's massive Falcon Heavy rocket, Elon Musk indicated there may be a change of plans coming. On the conference call where he confirmed the loss of its core booster, Musk said the company is focusing on the development of its BFR and has "kinda tabled" development of the Crew Dragon spacecraft intended for use with the Falcon Heavy. None of this seems final, however, and Musk also said that if there are delays on the BFR project and an "aspirational" projection that its upper spaceship portion could be ready for short flights next year, then things could change.

SpaceX pulled off quite the feat today when it launched the Falcon Heavy rocket. What's more, it landed the two flanking boosters in perfect synchronized formation. But the fate of the core booster was unclear; now it appears that the center booster, which was supposed to land on a drone ship, was lost.

Today, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket successfully lifted off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This was the first flight of the 27-engine rocket; so far, the mission appears to be going well. The rocket made it through the the moment of maximum stress and released the two outer cores, which have now successfully landed back at Kennedy Space Center.

Today, SpaceX will attempt to launch the Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time. The launch window is between 1:30 PM ET and 4:00 PM ET. If you'd like to watch the launch (and trust me, you definitely want to), then you can livestream it below. The stream will go live about 15–20 minutes before the launch window opens. Because this is a demo flight of a new rocket, though, delays can and should be expected.

Tomorrow, SpaceX will attempt to launch its massive Falcon Heavy rocket for the very first time. If successful, it will be the most powerful rocket in operation and opens up the possibility of future crewed missions to the Moon or Mars. Today, Elon Musk gave a few more details about the launch attempt during a press call ahead of tomorrow's main event.

SpaceX will attempt to launch its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time tomorrow. It's no small feat and a lot could go wrong, but SpaceX has a released a video showing how the launch will work if everything goes according to plan.

The debut launch of the Falcon Heavy will be a serious and complex affair, but SpaceX boss Elon Musk is trying to boost the fun level to maximum. Not only is he using a cherry red Tesla Roadster as ballast for the first test, he's placed a dummy wearing SpaceX's stylish new space suit in the driver's seat, according to a new Instagram post. "Starman in Red Roadster," Musk wrote, a reference to the fact that the EV will supposedly be blasting David Bowie's Space Oddity.

SpaceX hasn't been shy about wanting to land Falcon Heavy's three booster rockets (it formally proposed its plans a year ago), but will it try now that the launch has finally been nailed down? Yes. Elon Musk's outfit has confirmed that it will attempt to land all three boosters on Falcon Heavy's launch, which is now slated for a 2.5-hour window starting at 1:30PM Eastern on February 6th. As expected, the two side boosters will come back to the on-ground landing zones at Cape Canaveral, while the center booster should land on a drone ship off the coast.

Elon Musk has said that he wants to die on Mars -- after it's been colonized by his company SpaceX.

He may not have the precise details yet, but Musk will figure out the mission in style: The SpaceX space suits are sleek and form-fitting, while his cherry red Tesla sports car will be aboard the maiden flight of the interplanetary Falcon Heavy rocket. Meanwhile, on Earth, he'll work on connecting our brains to computers through tiny electrodes, building underground networks of car sleds that function like a personal subway system, firing passenger trains through a vacuum tube at the speed of sound and replacing air travel with his Big Fucking Rocket (BFR) spaceship that gets passengers anywhere on the planet in under an hour. That's without mentioning his efforts to advance electric cars and solar energy. Or the fact that this week, he made $10 million in four days by selling promotional flamethrowers.